Brian Garfield (32 page)

“Old fellow, it requires all kinds of moral and physical qualities to be a good hunter. It requires good judgment and cool courage. On the hunt, by custom and repeated exercise of self-mastery and will power, a man must get his nerves and his nerve thoroughly under control. Otherwise we all have buck fever sometimes, don't you know.”

“Sir, I expect it's a long time since Dutch had buck fever,” said Joe Ferris. “It's not buck fever just because he's seen too much blood.”

“Ah, Joe, I don't know what you mean by that. D'you know—one day I want to go back to Africa, south of where I went before, and hunt the greatest game on the earth—rhinoceros, elephant, Cape buffalo, the mighty lion. By Godfrey, I've never even
seen a.
lion! Doesn't the idea make your blood rush?”

“Can't say as it does, sir.”

There was a bleached buffalo skull. Sight of them was still common on the plains. They found nothing else that day, to Joe's relief, and they made camp by twilight in a fairly open section of Bad Lands where a low butte was crowned with rusty-red clay evidence that an old coal fire had consumed a surface lignite vein.

Roosevelt sat cleaning his favorite rifle. He did it mostly with one hand, still favoring the arm he had injured. The rifle was an 1876 Winchester in .45-75 caliber; he'd had the lever-action weapon custom-engraved for him with likenesses of buffalo, antelope and deer. His arsenal also included the bird shotguns—a Thomas ten and a Kennedy sixteen hammerless—and back in the ranch house for general round-the-meadow shots he owned a three-barrelled gun with twin shotgun bores above a .40-70 rifle tube. And in addition to all that he wore a .45 Frontier Colt single-action revolver, plated with both gold and silver and engraved with elaborate scrolls; raised on its ivory handles were his initials and the lugubrious head of a buffalo, in commemoration of the one he had shot last year and danced around.

He was a dandy dude for certain but Joe knew how that could fool people into underestimating him. From last year's experience Joe recalled how well Roosevelt knew his equipment and its uses. In his taxidermy kit, for example, were knives, arsenic, cotton wads, brushes, surgical shears, needle and thread. He would skin his prizes with great patient care. He didn't smell too good after he got done, but the job would be top class.

Roosevelt finished cleaning the rifle. He put it away. “I remember my first gun. My father gave it to me when I was thirteen. A 23-gauge Lefaucheux double.”

“You may need some of those guns on two-legged game before too long,” Joe observed. “What are you going to do about the Markee?”

“Do about him?” Roosevelt blinked behind the glasses. “Why, nothing. Unless he forces an issue, I've no reason to be concerned with him. Live and let live, old fellow.”

“I get the feeling the Markee don't think the same way you do about that. He thinks you're a Jew, and he thinks Jews ought to be ‘dealt with.' That's how I heard him put it.”

“He's mistaken on both counts, then,” Roosevelt said with his stubborn equanimity. Then he disappeared into the bushes again, sick with the colic. It seemed to Joe Ferris that the dude was always sick with something or other; and it had not ceased to amaze him that Roosevelt never seemed to give in to his constant ailments or to complain about them. Did he never feel despair?

In the morning Joe heard the sad rich cadence of a meadowlark's song. It was very loud and urgent. By the cock of Roosevelt's square head Joe realized the dude had heard it as well.

Roosevelt was quick to identify birds but he still hadn't learned what their songs could signify. Joe put his hand on his Remington revolver and looked all around.

A moment later sure enough he saw a small party of Indians emerge from behind a knoll and canter effortlessly away on their tough many-colored ponies.

Roosevelt's eyes squinted behind the glasses as the Indians rode away. He looked at Joe—at Joe's hand on the revolver—and said accusingly, “You knew they were there. Before we saw them—you knew.”

“Yes sir.”

“How?”

“Meadowlark didn't make that loud racket for no reason.”

“I see.” Roosevelt slowly smiled. “I see! Thank you, old fellow.” He stretched higher in the saddle and braced the high plains wind: his teeth glittered with the urgent desire to be driving forward.

Joe ranged his horse alongside the New Yorker's. With absolute certainty that his wish would be obeyed, Roosevelt said, “Find me buffalo.”

It made Joe uneasy and a bit angry with himself; he had the strong feeling Roosevelt understood perfectly well that he did not like hunting at all—that he went along grudgingly—but the dude seemed to have an uncanny appreciation that he did his job well and conscientiously, and seemed altogether confident of Joe's ability to produce, however reluctantly, whatever was asked of him. No matter how much Joe might dislike the work, it was difficult not to feel flattered.

The wagon rattled along behind them. They went onto the flat prairie. In the afternoon they came upon a middle-distant herd of blacktail.

“Good targets for you, sir,” Joe murmured.

Roosevelt dismounted and, his arm still being too weak for long-range shooting, aimed by resting his rifle across Manitou's saddle. He fired.

A moment passed. Then, astonishingly, two bucks collapsed.

Joe paced off the distance with his benefactor. “Four hundred yards, I make it.”

Roosevelt was staring at the two deer. The single bullet had killed both of them.

Joe said, “I've heard of accidents like that. Never seen one before.”

Roosevelt's eyes didn't move. “Accident? Old fellow, that's the best shot I've ever made.”

Joe thought,
More like a miracle.
Roosevelt was at best a mediocre marksman.

But it was the sort of story a man might brag on for the rest of his life.

Nearly a week out, on a sullen humid day with a damp taste of coming rain on the wind, they went up into a range of timbered hills and came upon a track remarkably like the footprint of a giant human, and a b'ar tree claw-stripped of its bark up to an alarming height of eleven or twelve feet.

Joe had a look around. From this elevation the land swept away to the tiny saw teeth of a far blue horizon, and nothing stirred anywhere; but Dutch Reuter was alert for the first time—wary as an elk—and Joe Ferris said softly to the New Yorker, “Sir, please keep in mind you can't outrun a grizzly. Some men have tried. I never heard where any of them lived. If you can't shoot the bear down, climb high up a tree—and hang on, for he'll try to shake you out of the branches.”

“What if there's no tree to climb?”

“Then there likely won't be a bear. They like the woods.”

It was not until after Joe had spoken that it occurred to him that, with his arm in its painful weakened condition, it must have been beyond Roosevelt's capabilities to climb a tree.

The same point might have occurred to Roosevelt as well. But he said nothing of it. He did not seem deterred in the least from his eager purpose.

In any event they didn't find a bear just then; all they found was rain. It was wet and dismally chill and Joe was miserable, especially when Roosevelt made such a point of how he was enjoying it all.

“Just remember Trollope's precept: ‘It's dogged as does it.'”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

The fire's livid coals turned their faces Indian-dark. Crickets made a din in the night and Joe heard the tremulous call of a little owl. A tethered horse scratched its neck against the tree. All the animals were nervous.

Joe hunkered under his tarp and watched water drip off the trough of his hatbrim. He cleared his throat. “Say, Mr. Roosevelt?”

“What is it, Joe?”

“Why do you have to kill that bear?”

“I have never shot a grizzly. Do you know what a rare privilege it is to be in this country, so close on his track?”

“Bear never did nothing against me or you, sir. Why not leave him be?”

“We test our courage by standing and facing such magnificent killer beasts.”

“Bear's got no rifle to shoot back at us.”

“What on earth has got into you of late, old fellow?”

“I just don't see where it improves us to be killing creatures that never did us harm.”

“It's the robust challenge of sport, my friend—and the requirements of modern science. Have you any idea how little is know about the grizzly bear? If we find this beast I shall learn a great deal from him.”

“Like what his meat tastes like?” Joe was in an exceptionally sour mood; perhaps it was the rain.

Roosevelt did not take offense. “Yes, by Godfrey. I shall learn that, and I shall take his measurements. I shall examine the contents of his stomach, to learn about his diet, and I shall try to determine his age. I shall mount his head and cure his hide, study his skeleton and his organs, examine his teeth and touch the texture of his fur. I shall fill my notebooks and publish the results of my studies, so that naturalistic science may be advanced.”

“Yes sir. And what'll we do with the half-ton of meat we can't eat?”

“It will feed someone. Indians if we can find them. If we can't, then coyotes and wolves and vultures.”

“If every man who comes west with a rifle shoots him a grizzly bear,” Joe said dismally, “pretty soon there won't be anything but bear ghosts.”

Roosevelt scoffed. “Don't exaggerate so.”

“Happened to the buffalo, didn't it. You used to see millions on these plains. How many we seen in the past week?”

Roosevelt—for one of the few times in Joe's recollection—said nothing at all. He only peered at the fire through his wet eyeglasses. Beyond him, beneath the wagon, Dutch Reuter snored loudly.

Theodore Roosevelt stood face to face with the great grizzly. The wind, plucking at its glossy brown coat, made its fur ripple like tall grass. Roosevelt aimed the rifle across the crook of his bad arm. As the bear lowered its head to charge, Joe began to lift his own rifle, but then Roosevelt fired.

The report of the gunshot echoed out across the hills with such reverberation that it seemed never to end.

Joe was ready to shoot but it wasn't necessary; the single bullet had killed the bear instantly: square between the eyes. It tumbled forward, however, and dropped only a few yards in front of the New Yorker.

Roosevelt didn't even take a step back.

It had been an act of considerable bravery. You had to admit that, Joe thought.

Roosevelt walked forward happily.

Joe looked down at the mountainous bear and said dryly, “You want to rassle the next one barehanded or will it satisfy you to use a Bowie knife?”

“I don't believe that brag of Mister De Morès's. Do you?”

Joe only shook his head. In truth he didn't care.

Roosevelt reached down to touch the bear's throat. The animal didn't stir. It was a magnificent beast. “Feel this coat, Joe. Like fine silk.”

“They are proud animals,” Joe said in a dull voice. “They like to keep themselves clean.”

Roosevelt stood up. “You may as well have Dutch bring the wagon up. We've a hard day's work on this bounty.”

“Yes sir.”

As Joe turned away he heard his employer's voice again, unusually quiet:

“Old fellow, by Godfrey you've infected me with an evil spirit.”

“What?”

“I don't feel the thrill in this that I ought to.”

A lone buffalo browsed on a yellow-grass slope. A huge specimen—truly his “great bison bull.” Roosevelt got off his horse, settled the rifle and steadied his aim. Joe looked away. The air was cool, the breeze fresh. A flight of Canadian geese went over, south-bound. Joe waited for the sound of the shot. He made a face; he felt sick, as if he'd had too much rot-gut tonsil paint the night before.

After a very long time he turned on his heel to see what was wrong.

The buffalo was there as before—hardly two hundred yards distant; an easy shot. Roosevelt was still down on one knee, still sighting the rifle. But now he eased the hammer down and stood, shook his head slowly and rammed the rifle back into its saddle scabbard. He looked at Joe.

“Damn you, Joe.”

Joe began to smile. “Be that as it may.”

Roosevelt did not return his smile. He was quite grave. He said, as if it were an idea that had just occurred to him, “Old fellow, it's one thing to hunt an animal for meat and sport and leather and science—it is another to exterminate a species. God gave us no right to do that.” He gripped the saddlehorn in his good hand and hauled himself into the saddle.

They rode away. Behind them the solitary buffalo continued to graze.

Next morning they loaded the wagon with bearskin, deer antlers, stuffed birds, full-racked elk and the head of the magnificent grizzly. It was time to go home.

Twelve

B
ill Sewall came in out of the grey weather, bearing a burlap sack full of coal. They had dug the lumps off the buttes by hand. “I wish it'd make up its mind to rain or snow or clear up.”

Wil Dow watched his uncle Bill take a match from the tin holder and go round lighting the kerosene lamps on the walls. Uncle Bill said, “I have got to get to the tonsorial place, get some dentisting—need to get my grinders put in order.” He went through the ritual of packing and lighting his pipe. “And I want to find out what stockings are worth.”

Sewall went to a window to glower up at the bluffs, fading now into early dusk. From where Wil Dow sat mending tack he could see the glow on a distant mound to the northwest where lightning had struck and a stubborn strip of soft lignite coal had caught fire in a clay hillside. In the cool days the vein smoked like a little volcano. Every night it glowed red, like twilight. These winter evenings were long; even Wil Dow felt low.

Uncle Bill said, “It's a great resort for thieves and cutthroats. Cowboy work—the cattle torture. I shall never like this country for a home.”